


The Larks Still Bravely Singing

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Gen, Older Characters, Post-Series, Post-War, Reminiscing, Telegrams, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 05:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5772982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1953, and there's a telegram on Jack Robinson's desk that he's too scared to open.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Larks Still Bravely Singing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarahtoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahtoo/gifts).



> Prompt: Phryne and Jack (and their friends), 20 or 30 years after s3 (so 1949/1959-ish) - what does their "found family" look like at that point? Are they still together and solving crime?

_“A fortune teller once told me that I would marry well, have four children and play a lot of croquet. What do you think of that?”_

_“I can almost see you playing croquet…”_

 

Detective Chief Inspector Jack Robinson sat at his desk in City South Police Station in the winter of nineteen-fifty-three, the same desk he had occupied for the last twenty-nine years, barring the war years, of course. He’d been offered promotion after promotion but he’d turned them all down. The life of the career police politician was not the life for him, and after the tumult of the Second World War, he had enough to be getting on with. The suit he was wearing was a slightly different cut than it had been in his younger days, the telephone on his desk was decidedly more modern, and steel-rimmed spectacles that framed his eyes were the same colour as the hair that still stubbornly tried to curl onto his forehead, but the work was the same, when one got down to basics. There was still the law, and the people who broke it, and the people who worked to find and punish them. 

On the blotter before him sat a telegram, unopened. It had been sitting there for about two hours, while he attended to various other police business, but it was always at the forefront of his mind. 

It was from the War Office. He simply knew. 

There was a tap at the door. Jack glanced up. “Good night, sir,” said the constable on duty. Jack smiled and nodded at the young man, his mind elsewhere. It wasn’t Hugh Collins, of course. 

It hadn’t been Hugh Collins since… God, nineteen-forty. In spite of Dot and three-soon-to-be-four kids and all the horror stories he’d ever heard about the trenches, he hadn’t been dissuaded from joining up. He was a good man, Hugh Collins, always trying to do the right thing… And he’d come back, but not to City South. He was a detective at City Central now, after working his way up from the junior detective promotion he’d been granted after the war. He’d balked at taking it, Jack remembered, saying he hadn’t earned it. 

“Think of it as a formality, Collins,” Jack had told him, remembering sharply how he’d felt the same way after his service. “You’d have been promoted before now, if you hadn’t left. Trust me, you deserve this.”

The sleek modern telephone on Jack’s desk rang loudly, breaking into his thoughts. “City South, Detective-Inspector Robinson. Yes, Commissioner Gibson. Yes, we’re close to cracking the Mulcahy case, I’m just waiting for my partner to go over the final details before we make an arrest. Yes… yes sir. Thank you, sir, I’m sure she’ll appreciate your confidence. I... sorry for the formalities. Force of habit. Thanks, Gib. Good night.”

Jack hung up and looked at the clock. Phryne should be there soon, and then they could finish going over the evidence and go home. His eyes skirted over the telegram on his blotter. 

He lapsed back into thought. 

The war… the wars… He remembered that night in ‘thirty-nine with the crystal-clear recollection of a nightmare. He had been with Phryne in New York City, of all places, visiting some highly-respectable millionaire friends from Phryne’s wayward youth. Jane had been with them, and Jack’s nephew Tom, and his and Phryne’s children, Antony and Sylvia… _(“Aunt Prudence still doesn’t believe he’s adopted…” “I’m not offering to have your child, Jack, but if it happens…” “Let’s name her after our mothers.”)_

A call had come in at the fabulous New York mansion, for Phryne, from London. Jack remembered her leaving the after-dinner gathering, and her American friends asking him cordial questions about Australia and talking to Jane and Tom about their studies. Nine-year-old Antony making paper airplanes on the floor, and Sylvia with all the determination of her six years trying to climb the ornate mantelpiece… “That was Mother,” said Phryne, coming back to the cozy domestic scene. The look on her face made Jack involuntarily cling to his daughter. “The Prime Minister’s just announced that Great Britain is at war with Germany…” She met his horrified gaze with one of her own. “Again.”

Getting home had been hell. They left the young children in New York – Jane and Tom had outright refused to stay – and went to England the very next day to convince Phryne’s parents and her cousin Guy and his family to get the hell out. The Fishers and the Stanleys made it out of England well before the Blitz, but Jack and Phryne were still there, at the express request of the king. 

“Who the hell told His Majesty that I did intelligence work during the Great War – the _first_ Great War?” 

“He’s the king, darling,” Phryne told him, on their last quiet night. They were alone now; Jane and Tom had gone back to Australia with the Fishers. Tom had immediately joined the army as a medic. The last they’d heard of Jane, she was nursing, but there were other jobs for women opening up with the military every day. 

“And before that, he was a prince. One that you used to tease me about dancing with.”

“I danced with all the royal boys, Jack. Bertie was just the sweetest. And if I got you into this mess, at least I’m here with you.”

“And at least it’s not croquet…”

There was another tap on the door. Jack looked up in annoyance and then got hurriedly to his feet. “Baroness.”

Phryne Fisher-Robinson (she had hyphenated her name for the sake of the children they had somehow managed to acquire) sauntered into his office as though she owned the place. Her lithe, slender frame and pale, high-cheekboned face had barely changed since they had first stood on opposite sides of this very same desk, even if there was a touch of snow finally beginning to touch the shining depths of her black hair. “Standing, your lordship? An earl and a viscount, standing, for a poor baroness? Now, this _is_ an honour!”

Jack rolled his eyes. “You’re a countess and a viscountess as well, in case you’ve forgotten.” He still couldn’t quite reconcile being the bearer of all the titles the late king had heaped upon their heads, in honour of the intelligence work they’d done in Europe in the forties. His wife took every possible opportunity to rib him about it. Hardly fitting behavior, Jack thought fondly. “Enough of the lordship nonsense. Come in and sit down.”

“I came to ask if you wanted a lift out to the estate. Tom and Jane and Jane's young lady are going on their own, tomorrow, but Sylvia and I are going tonight, to help set up tables and things, for the fundraiser.” Phryne trailed off, noticing the telegram. “Oh God,” she said softly. “Jack.”

“I haven’t opened it yet,” said Jack gruffly. Slowly, he sank into his chair. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “If it says what I think it does...” 

“You’re just torturing yourself this way.”

“I’ve always said that the suspense of not knowing is worse than the tragedy of knowing. I’m not so sure of that now. Christ,” he snorted, clearly choking back tears, “now I know how my mother felt.” 

Phryne said nothing for a moment. “Do you want me to read it first?” she asked finally. 

“No.” Jack sat up, grabbed the telegram and tore open the envelope, and removed the message from inside. It was dated the day before.

It wasn’t from the War Office.

DAD,

DEMOBBED IN SYDNEY THIS MORNING AND SEOUL CAN GO TO HELL –(STOP)– SHOULD BE HOME SATURDAY –(STOP)– LOVE TO MOM JANEY SYLVIA 

ANTONY

Jack dropped his head into his hands. “He’s safe, Phryne,” he said hoarsely. “Our boy’s coming home.”


End file.
